Wednesday, April 29, 2009

My sweet husband was born 26 years ago... and so to honor that occassion I decided to do something a little fun and fill this post with facts from this date in history.

On this date in:1289 - Qala'un, the Sultan of Egypt, captured Tripoli.

1429 Joan of Arc entered the besieged city of Orleans to lead a victory over the English.

1636 - Composer Esaias Reusner was born.

1661 - The Chinese Ming dynasty occupied Taiwan.

1672 - King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands.

1813 - Rubber was patented by J.F. Hummel.

1852 - The first edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus was published.

1856 - A peace treaty was signed between England and Russia.

1858 - Austrian troops invaded Piedmont.

1861 Maryland's House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union.

1862 New Orleans fell to Union forces during the Civil War.

1864 - Theta Xi was founded in Troy, New York.

1879 - In Cleveland, OH, electric arc lights were used for the first time.

1899 Jazz musician Duke Ellington was born in Washington D.C.

1913 - Gideon Sundback patented an all-purpose zipper.

1916 The Easter uprising in Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British authorities.

1918 - Germany's Western Front offensive ended in World War I.

1924 - An open revolt broke out in Santa Clara, Cuba.

1927 - Construction of the Spirit of St. Louis was completed for Lindbergh.

1941 - The Boston Bees agreed to change their name to the Braves.

1945 Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler married his longtime mistress Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker. The couple killed themselves the next day.

1945 American soldiers liberated the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

1946 Twenty-eight former Japanese leaders were indicted as war criminals.

1952 - IBM President Thomas J. Watson, Jr., informed his company's stockholders that IBM was building "the most advanced, most flexible high-speed computer in the world." The computer was unveiled April 7, 1953, as the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine.

1954 - Ernest Borgnine made his network television debut in "Night Visitor" on NBC-TV.

1960 - Dick Clark told the U.S. House of Representatives that he had never taken payola for the records he featured on his show "American Bandstand."

1961 - ABC’s "Wide World of Sports" premiered.

1967 - Aretha Franklin's "Respect" was released.

1968 - The musical "Hair" opened on Broadway.

1974 - Phil Donahue’s TV show, "Donahue" moved to Chicago, IL.

1974 President Richard Nixon announced he was releasing edited transcripts of secretly made White House tape recordings related to the Watergate scandal.

1975 - The U.S. embassy in Vietnam was evacuated as North Vietnamese forces fought their way into Saigon.

1975 - The Bee Gees released the album "Main Course." The album featured "Jive Talkin'" and "Nights on Broadway."

1992 - Exxon executive Sidney Reso was kidnapped outside his Morris Township, NJ, home by Arthur Seale. Seale was a former Exxon security official. Reso died while in captivity.

1992 - Rioting began after a jury decision to acquit four Los Angeles policemen in the Rodney King beating trial. 54 people were killed in 3 days.

1992 - Paula Abdul and Emilio Estevez were married. They divorced two years later.

1993 - An animated Barry White was a guest on "The Simpsons."

1994 - Israel and the PLO signed an agreement in Paris which granted Palestinians broad authority to set taxes, control trade and regulate banks under self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

1995 - Tupac Shakur married Keisha Morris inside the Clinton Correctional Facility. He was serving a 4 1/2 year jail term for sex abuse.

1996 - Phil Spector cancelled a recording project with Celine Dion due to a lack of a contract.

1996 Former CIA Director William Colby was missing and presumed drowned after an apparent boating accident in Maryland.

1996 The musical "Rent" opened on Broadway.

1997 A worldwide treaty to ban chemical weapons went into effect.

1997 Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk.

1997 - Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and was dishonorably discharged.

1998 - Steven Tyler injured his knee at a concert in Anchorage, Alaska. 14 shows had to be cancelled.

1998 - The U.S., Canada and Mexico end tariffs on $1 billion in NAFTA trade.

1998 - Brazil announced a plan to protect a large area of Amazon forest. The area was about the size of Colorado.

1999 - Tommy Lee announced that he had quit Motley Crue to devote time to his new band, Methods of Mayhem, and his family.

2002 - Kelsey Grammer and his production company, Grammnet Inc., were ordered to pay more than $2 million in unpaid commissions to his former talent agency.

2003 - Mr. T (Laurence Tureaud) filed a lawsuit against Best Buy Co. Inc., that claimed the store did not have permission to use his likeness in a print ad.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Today is not only my friend Michelle's birthday, but also my nephew parker! Yesterday we celebrated by having a small family/friends party at their home. Here are just a few pictures of what went on! Hope you enjoy! Happy 3rd Birthday Parker man!

I chose this title for this post, because that is exactly what Dale and Lori have left at Harvest Temple. A legacy. A legacy of integrity, a legacy of faith, a legacy of a Christ-filled life.

Yesterday, we had refreshments after service to honor Dale and Lori for their 11 1/2 years of service to our church and community.

I am sure I speak for many others when I say that they will be deeply missed around there, and they will always be loved by our church.

For me personally, and for Derek as well, Dale and Lori have been an integral part of our Christian growth. While the focus is to seek Christ and Christ, alone, Derek and I have always looked to Dale and Lori as mentors and friends.There were several periods in our lives, where we can honestly say without them influencing us and pointing us toward Christ- we would've walked away from the church. But because they loved us enough to teach us and show us the love of Christ, we grew in our faith and stood firm.

Words cannot express the gratitude that we have toward them for their unfailing love for our family, and for their ministry.

They will always have a place in our hearts, and we hope that we continue to be friends until the Lord returns or til the day we die, whichever comes first.

Here are just a few pictures from the time we got to spend honoring them yesterday.

You know how sometimes you sit back and marvel at the way God has worked things out in your life? Everytime I think of Michelle... this is what I think of. We were talking the other day, about how we became friends through a mutual friend, but never really hung out in high school, but God allowed us to know each other just enough that we'd add each other on facebook and begin talking again all these years later.

Who would've thought...

Michelle is an incredible, Godly woman, wife, mother, who puts Jesus at the foremost part of her family's life, and I love her dearly.

Today she celebrates her birthday and I wanted to post this to say

Happy Birthday!!!

I love you chica, may your day be blessed beyond measure and there be many more to come.

Yesterday, Scott (our guest preacher), spoke on the importance of the church functioning not only as individuals but as a family of believers in love. Basically instead of just being at church, we should find ourselves becoming ONE with one another, working in unity, hanging out and loving on one another.

I've always looked at our church as a family. But today I want to share with you a little about some people in our lives that are very dear to us.

From not long after we all really started seeking Christ, Derek, Will, Abigail, and myself started hanging out and have always been a "family". We always knew we were meant to be best friends and that anyone who married into our group would fit in perfectly as well.

As a group we've led ministry together, we've shared in joyous occasions and some hardships and tribulation. But through it all we've stood by each other and loved each other and we will always be the best of friends.

The first big leap in our group of friends, was that Will left us to go into the military. We missed him greatly but we talked with him often and whenever he came home to visit we made a big deal out of it and we all hung out like nothing had changed, and it hadn't.

Then, Derek and I got married. Even though now we were the "married" couple amongst many single people, our group remained and we grew together in Christ and spent time together as often as we could.

A few month's after our first wedding anniversary we welcomed the first "addition" into our group. Kyley Grace Jordan. She was born into the world already knowing she had a built in godmother and godfather in Abigail and William and anyone they eventually marry.

It still amazes me to this day how much she is loved by all of our friends, and things while maybe different within our group from this point on, never "changed."

Then, we were blessed to have another "addition" to our group, but this time in the form of a wife. William decided that he had found the one God had for him, and married Angelica. And like I previously stated, we knew from the start that anyone that married into our group would fit in perfectly.We celebrated together a few months later when they had a ceremony to bless their wedding with all of their friends present since when they originally got married it was away from home while they were both in the military.

After this, both Will and Angie got out of the military and they moved home to Montgomery, and we couldn't have been happier to have them home!!!

Then, we welcomed Isaac Marcus into the world, a healthy baby boy born to Will and Angie in January 08.

3 months to the day later... along came Elijah Franklin

Our boys were instantly best friends by default :)

During all of this time, we experienced heartache through death and joy through the healing of Abi's dad from cancer and many other things, but our "family" stood strong through it all!

Just 2 months ago, our latest addition was added to the group. In February, we welcomed Molly Eulogia Elizabeth Rus to our family.

The boys truely have become best friends...

and all the kids love each other so much.

And all the while, we are praying with diligance for the one that God has created for Abigail because we know that in His timing that her mate will fit in perfectly with us as well, and we'll have several more "additions" to our sweet little family :)

Friday, April 17, 2009

Ok so maybe it's not so random, but Amy wanted a few pictures of her and the kids together.So while we were at the park we took advantage of the beautiful scenery. Only problem is, I had 2 boys who wouldn't cooperate for anything. At least the girls did.